Still Standing
by JessicaJones
Summary: Thirty years have passed, but some things never change.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note: **I wrote this story a long time ago, and it is much darker than my current work. Warnings for implied rape and major character death._

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~0~

The phone rang in the Hyperion for the first time in two years, scaring them both. Spike dove under a desk; he must have thought it was a bomb scare. In the thirty years they had lived together in that old hotel, he hadn't mellowed at all. Angel, still the patient one, assessed the situation as the phone jangled. "I think someone is calling us," he said eventually.

Spike poked his head up from under the desk. "You can't be serious, mate. Nobody calls us anymore." Angel shrugged, and the phone rang again. Spike's eyes widened, and he looked from the phone, to Angel, and back again. "Who the bloody hell is left, anyway?"

The phone continued to ring, piercing the Hyperion's empty silence every fourth second. "I don't know, a few people. Anne, maybe," Angel said, shrugging. "Should we pick it up?"

Spike blinked, then rolled his eyes as if that had been his idea all along. "Of course we should, you poncey poof!" Spike said, swinging out from under the desk and striding across the room. He picked up the phone and held it to his ear. "Angel Investigations... uh... we help the homeless."

"Helpless," Angel corrected.

Spike sneered at Angel, then huffed and said, "Right... the helpless."

"Helpless? Oh, come on," the voice on the other end said. She laughed then, like someone dancing on a grave, and said, "How long has it been since there's been anyone like that?"

Spike coughed, and for a moment he felt sick, as though he were sliding through time into the dark, and everything warm and good was being left behind. Angel felt it too, and he stood up, his face turned to stone. "Who is this?" Spike asked weakly.

"Give me a break, Spike, you know who this is. Or is old age finally catching up to you two like it has the rest of us?" She laughed again, her voice dead and crackling, and said, "It's Buffy, dear."

Angel said, "Please tell me it's Anne."

Spike put his hand over the receiver, said, "Sorry."

Angel nodded. "Right. Buffy. Of course it's Buffy." He scowled. "I just… I thought she had the sense to leave us alone, after last time." He made a great show of not caring, for all of three seconds, before he began to fidget nervously, then asked, "So, then... how is she? Why is she calling? What's going on?"

Spike gestured to a second phone, lying under a pile of papers on the other side of the desk. Angel picked it up.

"You boys still bored?" she asked as Angel picked up. "You must feel very unnecessary, now that my girls can take care of everything by themselves."

By her 'girls,' she meant the army of slayers she had trained at her compound in Scotland. They kept the order in the underworld now. "We are a little bored, yeah," Spike said. "It might help if you called more often. How long has it been?"

"Ten years," Angel said, closing his eyes.

"Oh, hi, Angel," she chirped, blithely ignoring the tension on the other end. "Has it really been that long?"

"You know it has."

"I know. Sorry." She grew quiet, and Spike remembered that habit she had, that aloofness. She could be standing right next to him and he still felt alone. Drove him crazy. "You know how it is."

Spike was about to say, "Not really," but he knew it wasn't worth it. He looked up at Angel, who was looking at him with that I-know-what-you-mean glower. At least he understood.

"I'm in Los Angeles," she said. "I'm not here long. Can I see you?"

Angel and Spike both tried not to freeze, not to feel their skin crawl, not to scream. "Which one?" Angel asked.

"Um... both of you, I guess."

A great, breathless sigh from both of them. The last time she'd blown through this city, they had all three come to blows. It had taken years for those wounds to heal. But it was Buffy. It would always be Buffy. "Sure," Angel said. "Stop by any time."

"How about tomorrow?"

They agreed. Spike put down the phone. "Why do I feel like I've been kicked in the stomach?"

"For me, its like a knife, right here," Angel said, wryly gesturing to his heart. "Remember the last time she was here?"

"When she breezed in here and dared us to fight over her?" Spike asked. "The time we nearly killed each other before she wolloped us each herself? Sure, somehow, I've managed to forget. " Spike shook his head. "Honestly, why does she do this to us?"

"It was a bad time for her. She'd just gotten divorced from what's-his-name. She was turning forty."

"Ah, yes, the mid-life crisis." Spike plunked down in the desk chair and twirled once. "It's a good thing we vamps don't suffer from such things."

Angel laughed. He crossed his arms and said, "Really? Then how do you explain your Billy Idol phase? Don't think I've forgotten."

Spike chuckled, running a hand through his soft brown curls. It had been decades since he had bleached his hair or painted his nails. "Yeah, I guess I was feeling my age. Remember your whole businessman-slash-lawyer-slash-souled-vampire thing?"

Angel shrugged. "Other guys buy sports cars. I acquired Wolfram and Hart."

"Which came with sports cars," Spike reminded. "So you think we should cut her some slack?"

"Don't you want to?"

Spike bit his lip, and stared hard at Angel. "Desperately," he said, then, "You still love her?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Always, peaches."

There was the inevitable silence that always followed that admission. They stared at each other blankly, each aware of the other's thoughts, before the moment passed.

"I wish Cordelia hadn't died," Angel said, breaking the silence.

"There you go again, always bringing up the brunette," Spike said, cocking an eyebrow. "It never would have been any different with her, Angel, you know that. We're not meant to be happy, with or without a curse."

"She still shouldn't have died that way."

Spike had to agree. He hadn't really known her, but from what he'd heard, the Powers had been cruel to her. Used, corrupted, and comatose by twenty-two. But they were cruel to everyone, he thought. "She's gone, Angel."

"They're all gone," Angel said, looking around the empty lobby.

It was true. Fred had died next, immolated in the birth pains of Illyria. And then Illyria had died, too, and Gunn, in the final battle. That was a grief he could not reconcile. Why had they died, and he and Spike survived? Angel had been ready; it was his plan. Buffy and her army had arrived in time to save them, but not the rest. It haunted him. Lorne had survived, too, of course, and still lived in Los Angeles, but they hadn't heard from him in two years. He had been their last phone call.

Angel never expected to be the last one to leave, and he had expected Spike less. Spike had hardly expected it, either. For hundreds of years they had hated each other and loved each other enough to tolerate each other, now and for eternity. So there they were, back where they had started, minus Darla and Drusilla, with two souls to boot and not a day older.

"Remember when you staked Drusilla?" Spike asked wistfully, remembering the way his old paramour had loved the stars.

"She was evil," Angel said, nodding. "You were upset, as I recall."

"She was my lover for a hundred years, Angel. And my sire." Spike sniffed. "Bugger her morals."

"I thought you'd understand."

"It sometimes seems like you exist torment me," Spike said.

"You know, I think the same thing about you," Angel said, sitting on the desk. "That you exist to take things from me. Drusilla, the Ring of Amara, that amulet thingy that destroyed Sunnydale. Buffy."

"That last one you gave away," Spike said.

"Fair enough," Angel said. He picked up a pencil and absently broke it in half. "Doesn't matter, anyway. The only thing that lasts is us."

"Let's not do this," Spike suggested. "Let's just keep on as we were. Two dead blokes, throwing back pints of blood and Guinness, watching reruns of Bonanza, pretending to like each other. Alright then?"

Angel scratched his chin and looked at the door. It was still the same door as it had been in the fifties, a priceless antique now. Angel kept the whole place in perfect repair. He looked back at Spike, his face fallen. "I can't believe she's coming here again," he said.

Spike clapped him on the back and said, "We'll survive."

Angel nodded quickly, and stared down at his feet. "Forever," he agreed. He smiled and scratched his chin. "And I don't just pretend, Spike. I really do like you. Well, sort of."

Spike smirked. "I think we're past the simple distinctions of like and dislike, Angel. After all this time." He paused, noticing a spot of lint on his duster, flicking it off. It had been replaced three times since Nicki's death, rendered meaningless, but he still wore it. "We just are. And always will be."

~0~

Spike remembered the first time he met Angel, or Angelus, soon after Drusilla turned him. Drusilla brought him back to her lair, introducing Darla and Angel like parents. He had been William then, and his first thought had been that this Irish vampire was a prat with bad hair. He liked Darla from the start, although she never took to him or Dru, but he didn't care for Angelus at all.

He liked him less the first time he saw him have his way with Drusilla. She loved Spike, as much as a vampire could, but she adored Angel. She would call him Daddy, and he would call her princess. It didn't matter if Spike was there or not; it was Angel's gang, and they all belonged to him. He use Drusilla as he pleased, but Spike was not allowed to touch Darla, or hardly even speak to her.

He had his way with Spike, too, at first. It wasn't about sex-it was about dominance. Shocked, William had borne it because he had no choice. When he had gotten older and stronger, and changed his name, he fought back, to Dru's sincere amusement. After a tussle which Angel won, Angel laughed and agreed to leave Spike alone. Drusilla he kept.

He remembered the day with the gypsies very clearly. He had been devouring them like candy while Darla tried to bargain with their spellcasters. She wanted them to take back Angel's soul, but they refused. Spike had ruined it, Darla told him, but he didn't care. He would be the leader then, he assumed. Angel was useless, a vampire with a soul, what a nancy! Ironic, now, that bit.

Spike hadn't been the leader, of course. Darla had directed them after Angel lost his nerve. She was the progenitor, after all, but she had no interest in the group if Angel wasn't in it. The day after he ran off with the baby in China, she left to rejoin the Master, and Spike was alone with Drusilla, which was fine by him.

As much as he had hated Angel as a cub, Spike hated him more in Sunnydale. First off he had hated him for changing sides, and then hated him for changing back. Hated him in the end most of all, because he broke Buffy's heart. Buffy had closed down after that, for everyone. At least that's what Spike told himself.

When she had rescued them from the Circle of the Black Thorn, in that dark alley, Angel had been furious. "You stupid girl!" he'd screamed. "If you couldn't get here earlier, you shouldn't have come at all!" He was grieving, of course, for Fred and Gunn and Wesley and Cordelia and all of humanity, but Spike had been so angry with him; it wasn't Buffy's fault, it was his fault, and he was most angry with Buffy for letting him get away with it.

Before she left, Buffy came to him and said, "Take care of him._" _Of Angel. Spike had sputtered and protested, but she looked at him in that way, and he had stayed beside him ever since.

The next time she came to Los Angeles, years later, Buffy came to be with Angel. Some shamans he knew from Wolfram and Hart had finally taken the castration clause out of his curse, and she came back from Scotland to see him. To be with him. That had hurt more than Spike expected. It was no secret that Buffy had always loved Angel, that he was the one she'd always really wanted, but he never thought he'd be there, watching it.

It hadn't lasted. As Spike said, they weren't meant to be happy. He had remained aloof, and she had been unable to reach him. The only time he showed real emotion with her was at the end, when he had seen her with Spike. She was sitting next to him, her head just slightly on his shoulder, but Angel had known it was over.

He had taken a swing at Spike right then, and Spike let it hit him. Knocked him right off his chair, and Angel was about to pummel him purple before Buffy jumped in and stopped him. They started screaming at each other, and they wrecked almost every piece of furniture in the room before it was over.

She had stayed a little while with Spike, testing him out again. It was probably the best time of his life, but that was relative. She still treated him like crap, punishing him for not being Angel, and the closer she got to him the further away she felt.

He would have taken it, though. He would have taken it forever if it wasn't for Angel. He would have gone back to Scotland with her and let her keep him as a toy, but it was too much for Angel. His grandsire had looked like death when he lost her, and he never got better. He tried to be happy for them, but it was hard when it was so obvious they were wrong for each other. Eventually, Spike told her to leave. She had beaten them for it, and cried, and he had wanted to hold her for eternity until she withered up and died, but he had to let her go.

That was when he realized he loved Angel. Not like he loved Buffy... God, he loved her... but Angel was his blood brother. Angel was the only one who understood, the only one who would still be around. He let her go.

She had married what's-his-name, that Finn boy. Turns out his marriage to that golly-gee-shucks wife of his hadn't worked out, and Buffy grabbed him on the rebound. That hadn't worked out; he was damaged goods, too. She had come back to them when it ended, all rage and violence. She blamed them both for her emotional mayhem, which was fair. After she had gone, Spike and Angel's friendship was almost ruined, but they had made amends eventually. They had time.

Now she was coming back. He could hardly stand to see her again; he could hardly wait. After laying in bed for hours, he admitted he couldn't sleep and went over to Angel's room.

"You still awake?" he asked quietly at the door.

"Of course," Angel said.

"I miss her every day," Spike said. "But I never wanted her to come back. Not really."

Angel said, "Yes, you did."

"I know."

Angel patted the bed next to him. "Come here, son, tell me your troubles."

Spike walked towards the bed and sat down. "I don't need to tell you anything," he said. "You know what I feel."

"Of course I do. Two sides of the same coin," Angel said. "You can still say it."

Spike shook his head. "No point."

"Well, we can just lie here, then, secure in the knowledge that each of us is as miserable as the other."

"Spot on, poofster."

Spike lay down, staring at the ceiling. "Do you think there's any chance that things will be different?" he asked Angel. "Better even?"

Angel didn't answer. There was no point. They passed the night in silence, no breath, no movement, neither sleeping. The storm that was Buffy was coming.

~0~


	2. Chapter 2

~0~

"Remember when you cut off my secretary's head?"

Spike smiled. "Harmony? She was annoying," he recalled. "You didn't mind. She'd already betrayed you to that Hamilton bloke."

Angel shrugged. "It's not the point. I'm just making a list."

"Of the things I've taken from you?" Spike asked, smirking. "Get over it, mate."

"Mate?" Angel said. "Spike, how long has it been since you were in the UK? A century? When are you going to admit you aren't British anymore?"

"What, and abandon my roots for bloody Hollywood?" Spike threw his feet up on the desk and flashed a smile. "I'm not like you, Angel. Anyway, my accent's sexy."

"Yeah, and who are you trying to impress?"

Like clockwork, like poetry, Buffy chose that moment to enter. Somehow, Spike had expected to sense her coming, to smell her, but he was caught unprepared. As was Angel, staring at her, his mouth open, back hunched.

She smiled and stepped in, become quite elegant in her old age, a superhero Katherine Hepburn. The last time they had seen her, she had been overdone, her hair an unnatural shade of yellow and her face covered in makeup. It must have been a product of the divorce, because today she looked radiant. She was older now, fifty-plus, with thick streaks of white in her hair and tiny crow's feet under her eyes, but she held herself regally. She was no longer the only slayer in the world, but she was still queen. She looked from one to the other, said, "Hey."

Yep, Spike thought. Still in love with her.

"So, how've you been?" Angel asked, his voice as calm as the Dead Sea but holding on to the arms of his chair so tight his knuckles were white.

She shrugged. "The school is good," she said. "We finally got accredited last year, so we've started teaching full time. You know, math and history in addition to slaying and magic. The girls are really smart. I'm proud as a peacock."

Spike nodded. "But not happy."

She smiled. "You know me," she said, rolling her eyes. "Not meant to be happy." She paused, then asked, "And how are you two? Still not casting a reflection?" She laughed, a forceful sound that was not as light as she intended. She seemed tired, Spike thought. Without hesitation, she sat down on the couch and claimed the room. "It's always been my fantasy that I would wake up one day and one of you would be human." They looked confused, so she clarified. "In my fantasy, that makes things easier." They still looked blank, so she shrugged and let it go.

"It's been a long time since we did small talk, Buffy," Angel said. "With anyone, really. If there's something on your mind, just say it."

Buffy nodded. "Right. Cut to the chase." She took a deep breath. "I'm dying."

Pause. Like a drop of water on the edge of a leaf, about to fall.

"It's a tumor, same as my mother and just as inoperable," she explained. "I don't have a huge amount of time. The doctors say I should be dead, actually, and it's just my slayer strength that's keeping me going."

"You don't look like you're dying," Angel said quietly.

"I know, but I am, for sure," she said. "And there's no point trying to find a mystical cure. You only get one magical one-up and I already used mine. Not that I'd want to, really. I feel pretty good about dying now. Everything I wanted to do is done. The army's where it ought to be, and the world is safe. Now I'm just making the rounds, finding peace with the people I've quarreled with."

"That would be us, then."

"You're just about the only ones left," she said. "I said good-bye to Riley, not that he really cared. Xander was very sweet-he's building my coffin right now." That seemed shockingly morbid, but she said it very lightly, which was typical. "And, well, everyone else is already... well, dead."

They took a moment to consider that. Willow was long dead. She had tapped herself out completely when she had raised the slayers, and her body had unravelled slowly from the inside. Dawn had also died young. The monks had done a poor job making her durable, apparently, and she had deteriorated quickly, dying of old age when she was twenty-seven. Giles was still alive, but he was ancient now and only occasionally remembered her name. No one else really mattered, except them.

"I'm sorry," Angel said.

"Don't be," she said. "I've had thirty years of borrowed time. Which is not as much as you boys, but it's plenty for me. I just hope I'll get to go back where I was the first time."

"Of course you will."

She waved a hand. "That isn't the point. I don't have many days left," and at that, the air felt even thicker - days? "I know I can't change the past, and I know I can't just make things right with some cheesy greeting card sentiments."

Then she took a deep breath. "I can apologize, though, from the bottom of my heart, and tell you that I love you, both of you, even though it hardly ever showed. I loved you more than anything in this world, and that's why I was so cruel to you, both of you, because I couldn't stand it." She began to look very small. "It doesn't excuse anything, but I wanted to tell you."

She's telling us this because she's dying, Spike thought.

"You know I could never stay mad at you, Buffy," Angel said.

She smiled and looked at Spike. "Me, neither," Spike said, too quickly. "All's forgiven."

She nodded very slowly, making a small 'oh' shape with her mouth, the way she did when she didn't believe you. "Baby steps," she said, then, to Angel, "Can you leave us alone for a little while?"

Angel looked like someone had just killed his cat, but he allowed it. He left the room obligingly. That was his fashion; he was the noble one, the one that did not let his feelings matter. Spike felt very uncomfortable, and unable to move. "What are you doing, Buffy?" he asked stiffly.

"You don't have to say you forgive me, just because I'm dying," she said.

"What? Of course I have to," he said quickly, wrapping his arms around himself. "But that's not why I said it." She was watching him, remembering him, analyzing what he meant to her. He felt self-conscious. "I don't need to forgive you, Buffy. What happened between us was hardly your fault. "

"You were still angry."

"Of course I am! Was, I mean... oh, bully, you know I'm still angry. I loved and lost, and then I was bitter. That's the way of it. I don't need to forgive you for my own heartache."

Her brow furrowed. "Then why are you acting this way?"

"Because you're dying, Buffy!" he said, yelling. "I can't believe you just waltzed back into my personal space to tell me that I'm never going to see you again, not ever, not even by accident. I'm never going to hear your voice again, or touch you, or catch your scent. You already smell different, which is the only reason I know you aren't lying just to torture me. Because you do that. In a few weeks you'll be gone, a pile of rotting flesh in the ground. How am I supposed to act?"

She looked very frail, so thin she almost disappeared, and Spike could see how sick she was. She didn't even have tears left. They stared at each other. Their relationship had never been obvious, as hers had been with Angel. They weren't star-crossed lovers destined to save the world together or die fighting. They were just two souls who understood each other, two people who wanted something to hold. She asked, "Why did you leave me?"

"You know why," Spike said, turning away from her. "A lot of reasons. Mostly Angel."

"Didn't I mean more to you than Angel?" she demanded. "Wasn't I supposed to be the great love of your life? We could have worked it out, or run away, or anything. But you told me to leave. You let me go."

"It was more complicated than that," Spike said quietly, looking at the ground. "You know that. I would have done anything you'd asked, but it was hopeless. You left because you knew that."

"You were supposed to give me hope," she said.

He looked back at her sadly. "I'm fresh out of hope," he said. "Still got some generic best wishes, if you'd like them instead, but they never do any good."

"Damn you. I feel like I should hit you now."

Spike nodded. "That's how we got along best, I'd wager," he said. "Go ahead. Take a swing."

She cocked her head, her brow furrowed. He opened his arms, waiting. The slayer and her vampire. She shrugged and punched him. Although she still had slayer strength, her speed was off, and he caught her hand before it connected, pinning it gently to her side. He caught her next punch with his other hand, holding her, closer now. She had given him that one. Damnit. He had never wanted to lose that. He leaned in and kissed her.

He had meant to be gentle, almost mocking, but the taste of her sent him into the past. He held her fiercely and kissed her, remembering. It was a moment before he realized where he was, and he noticed that she kissed him back. He drew back and looked her in the eyes.

She said, "Tell me that you love me."

He remembered her saying that to him, insistently, right before she broke up with him the first time, right after she'd seen Riley with his first wife. "You know I love you," he said. "I'll always love you. Even when you're gone."

"Spike..."

He felt himself breaking down, and then he felt her tiny arms around him, familiar and strange. "I always thought you'd come back," he said, sobbing now. "I thought we'd find a way, someday. Give it time, I thought. Sodding mortality, Buffy." He wiped his eyes. "I really do love you, pet. I didn't want to let you go."

"Thanks, Spike. I know."

~0~

Angel paced around his bedroom for what seemed like days, waiting to hear from them. It was alright, he told himself. There were things they had to say, he knew that, and he didn't want to hear them. That was for sure. Damn, but his insides were burning up.

Buffy knocked on his door, startling him, and after all that waiting he still felt unprepared. So many things he had wanted to tell her, but they were all gone when she walked in. There she was, bursting back into his life when he had just finished packing her into a tiny corner of his heart. She said, "Did you miss me?"

"More than you can imagine."

She nodded. "That's probably true." She walked in softly and sat down on his bed, looking like a picture. Glancing around the room, she considered it before she said, "I can't believe you still live here. I can't believe you can live with him."

He shrugged. "I like the decor. Less evil than the law firm. As for Spike... we have an understanding."

She cocked an eyebrow but said nothing.

He sat next to her on the bed. There had always been so much silence between them. He coughed. "I know you think I'm cold, but it's a front, Buffy. It always has been."

She smiled at him, bit her lip, and tapped her foot once. Then she leaned in and kissed him, very softly, from a distance. He kissed her back, feeling echoes of other worlds. He touched her tentatively, and she was light as a bird under his fingers. She held him tightly for a moment before she withdrew.

"I wish you had let me in," she said.

"So do I, and I know how stupid this sounds," he said, "but it's a habit two hundred years old. That's two lifetimes weighing on me, all the time, and I just wanted... Do you know something? There's so much I always meant to tell you. I guess I thought I'd get to it eventually."

"Like what?" she asked. "You have to tell me now, last chance and all."

"I meant to tell you about Connor. That man who used to visit, sometimes." She nodded. He said, "He was my son."

She blinked, but was somehow unsurprised. "Your son? With who? And how?"

"With Darla," Angel said. "He was a miracle. It was all part of the prophecy. I was supposed to kill him on my way to sanshu. I could never do that, Buffy, so I let him go. I never saw his childhood, and I had myself erased from his memory until an enemy forced him to remember. He turned out fine thought, had a wife, no kids. Died of a heart attack six years ago.

"I'm sorry, Angel."

"When he forgot about me, it was like a part of me was ripped out," he said, holding himself. "When he died, he soured the rest of me. I miss him so much, Buffy, I can't even express it. But... even so... I missed you more."

She looked down. "I wanted to be with you, Angel, but you never let me get close to you. Not for a second."

He nodded. "I know."

"Don't just say you know," Buffy said. "You can't just accept something like that. You have to own it, and change it. It's the only way you'll ever sanshu. If you want to be human, you have to start from the inside."

He shrugged. "There's no point in being human anymore, Buffy."

"Isn't there?"

"No," he said. "You're dying."

~0~

Her health began to deteriorate rapidly, and it became clear that she was going to die in Los Angeles. Angel called a few old friends and managed to make a comfortable place for her in the hotel. Pretty soon he was talking with Lorne, asking him for help with the funeral service. It was so efficient, it made Spike sick.

She lost consciousness one day, and she turned cold, her breathing shallow and her skin very pale. Angel and Spike huddled together in her room, watching her, while a nurse sat near the bed, administering IV's that helped with the pain. "It won't be long now," the nurse said. "It's time to say good-bye."

Angel nodded and approached the bed. He picked up Buffy's hand and said, very gently, "Good-bye, Buffy." She murmured something in response, but it wasn't coherent. Angel put her hand down and stepped aside.

"Oh, bugger this, Angel!" Spike huffed, glaring at his grandsire. "We can't let her die like this. Not now, when she's just come back to us."

Angel looked calmly back at Spike. "It's what she wanted," Angel said.

"Damn you," Spike said. "Always doing the right thing."

"And what would you do?" Angel asked. "The wrong thing?"

Buffy moaned, and tossed weakly. They both watched her sadly before glaring back at each other. Spike said, "Yeah, maybe I would."

Angel crossed his arms in front of his chest and waited, growing irritated.

"Don't just stand there acting like you don't know what I mean," Spike snapped. "You love her as much as I do."

"I'm trying to not know what you mean, Spike."

"Angel. We have the power to save her, right here in this room." He gritted his teeth. "We could make her like us, and we wouldn't have to say these prissy good-byes, not ever."

"I can't believe you're even suggesting this."

"I can't believe you're not. Look at her, Angel. We were finally getting along, all three of us. I don't want to let her go again."

Angel turned on Spike, his eyes on fire. "You have to," he said. "You know she wouldn't be the same. She'd be a monster."

"I won't make her into a monster," Spike said. "We'll figure a way to make her like us, souled and all. We do alright, don't we? She'd be happy, and we'd be together forever. Isn't that better than this?"

"No," Angel snapped. "If that's what she wanted, don't you think she would have asked for it? She's had plenty of time."

"You prig," Spike growled, and he felt his blood racing. He took a swing at Angel, who ducked, and returned with a kick that knocked Spike off his feet. Spike jumped up, his face transformed, and lunged at Angel, all teeth and nails, and Angel rolled into him, tumbling over each other on the floor.

Spike was in a blind rage, punching and kicking and biting indiscriminately. Angel boar it easily, silently, putting him down again and again. A few moments later the nurses voice ended it all.

"She's dead," the nurse said.

That was that. Spike looked at Angel, and Angel looked away. "Happy?" Spike demanded.

"Oh, sure. Ecstatic, you nitwit."

Spike walked up to Angel, fists in his pockets, and glared at him. "So what now?"

"I'll make the arrangements," Angel said. "I know someone. I'll... bury her."

"I mean about us."

Angel nodded. "I expect you'll be leaving," he said. He stuffed his hands in his own pockets. "We'll both sulk about this for a while, and then we'll meet up again in a couple of decades, when we've simmered.

Spike stepped back, mouth open. Then he nodded. "I didn't think it would be like this."

Angel almost laughed. "You figured that would you would vamp her, and she'd run off with you to Mexico? Leave me to my brooding?"

"Something like that. Bloody torment, this."

Angel caught Spike's eyes. Spontaneously he grabbed Spike's head and hugged him, a strange embrace that was neither tender nor unkind. "I'm going to miss you," he said. "I never wanted to be the last one standing."

Spike pulled away. "Hell no, me neither," he said, turning, walking away. He opened the door quickly, violent and dramatic. "Cor, maybe it's time we sat down."

Angel followed Spike to the door and watched him go. As he left, Spike waved, behind his back. It meant that there was nothing to forgive. The nurse closed Buffy's eyes and that was all.


End file.
